Landlord - repairs - any advice welcome

[Redfox]

Hello, hope the wisdom of mn can help. I have lived in my privately rented house for 10 years and have a good relationship with landlord and he has carried out any repairs straight away and I am an excellent tenant.

Around 4 years cracks started appearing in the wall of the back bedroom/ kitchen and the plaster started falling off etc. It was subsidence - cue a long sage with Landlord's insurance company and a big tree was was cut down. House has been liveable in during this period and most affected has been kitchen/ back bedroom - insurance company will repair the cracks and paint kitchen/ living / bedroom and LL will be replacing kitchen units

Work started around 2 and a half weeks ago and it has been v disruptive - I work at home a lot and have been unable to do so really. I know a lot of it has been out of LL’s control as it has been through the insurance company. House is v v small so all the kitchen stuff is piled up in the sitting room along along with the new kitchen units so stuff is everywhere.

So painting has finished and LL started work on the kitchen on Thursday and gutted it and water has been turned off in the kitchen so I have been without a sink since then and looks like i will not have one till maybe Tuesday. LL put in some kitchen floor units yesterday but the kitchen company gave him the wrong ones so they have to be reordered so the ones to go back are sat in the living space. Washing machine has been disconnected. The cooker is working however stuff is on it and I have no surfaces so my son and I have been eating cereal/ scraps really/ pizza to go straight into oven.

I am currently washing up in the bath and have a kettle in my bedroom so I feel like I am camping out. Everywhere is fairly dusty from the work and I am going to have a go at cleaning / hoovering everything today. I am fed up of it all now. Son & went out for lunch yesterday and to the pictures and I don’t know what we are going to do about food today.

I know there must be regulations / legal guidelines etc minimum standards etc as a tenant - something about house being fit for purpose and I suppose it is - I do have access to water ( in the bathroom) No work will be done today as LL is having a rest so gawd knows when work will be complete.

LL says cheerily…” So Redfox grit your teeth as the work will soon finished soon and it will be worth it” But no real acknowledgement for him that it must be tricky living like this and I am beginning to feel hacked off. Am I unreasonable to think this …. certainly a token would be welcome from him… ..a bottle of wine….. an enquiry about what my son & i are going to eat. Yeah what I would like really is a small rent reduction- that would be great… but I can not see that happening.

Is someone clever able to help me word a reasonable text to him about the inconvenience of it all ? Or shall I leave it. Or does anyone have any experience of going through this/guidelines or shall I just put up with it? Any advice welcome

Oops sorry long post and thanks to anyone who reads it

In any home (rental or otherwise ) there will be periods of inconvenience. It's life I'm afraid. Telling them it's inconvenient won't change that. Do you think they don't know it is?
Work from the library or a cafe and eat at cheap places for another couple of weeks. You'll get through it and it's worth gritting your teeth and bearing it for a place that's good and a landlord who does repairs.

My husband and I bought a house and had to rip everything out and replace it all at our own expense, and live around the disruption and inconvenience with a baby. Do you think we'd get let off mortgage payments because it was difficult or inconvenient?
Your landlord is doing repairs, I think I'd be chuffed with that and just be glad he's a decent sort. In all of our rentals before we bought the LLs were extremely difficult to get hold of, didn't bother with repairs (think left with boiler for all of a December because he was on holiday and wouldn't pick up phone) and stuck the properties up for sale after we'd paid ridiculous fees to letting agents to get the damn place in the first instance.
I think sometimes you need to put up and shut up really.

What you do if you owned?? If the works needs doing the work needs doing.

if you owned it the mortgage wouldn't stop while repairs of this kind were done.

What do you want? He could offer to stop the rent, you move out into a hotel until the work is finished, paying with the rent money. Not sure what else is realistic.

some landlords do have insurance for alternative accommodation for tenants if house is uninhabitable - but as you note, it isn't.

I think if the work is being tackled in a reasonably efficient manner there’s not much you can or should do. Mistakes do happen (wrong units) and as he’s been a v good landlord and you’ve been a v good tenant I wouldn’t make an issue out of this as long as you think he is making sincere efforts to get it done properly and efficiently.

I am a homeowner and when my neighbours did a basement excavation and I had to work from cafes for weeks. When DD was poorly I had to send her to a friend’s house for a few days as the noise was so extreme. None of this had anything to do with my choices and I had absolutely no say in any of it. Sometimes it is just a bit crap.

Yes work is being tackled in a reasonably efficient manner. I suppose I am fed up today of the chaos today however I have a made a reasonable start on my bedroom and ordered new linen curtains as a treat. I have tided things away and now can not find them which is different. Hopefully next Sunday things will look different.

*different...i mean annoying

we own and live with crappy diy, not the same if renting though, you are paying for a servie , ie a house with basic amenities, (sink, cooker, washing machine plumbing. )

I think that’s true susan. You probably are entitled to some sort of recognition or recompense. It’s just in a good relationship I wouldn’t bother and put it down to life annoyances.

You've got access to washing and cooking facilities and the house is habitable just not pleasant at the moment. I get that it's annoying and a pita but I can't see that you're entitled to a reduction in rent.

I live in a HA house that was completely rewired, gas fire ripped out, central heating put in, new bathroom and kitchen to replace the falling apart ones that were at least 30 years old. It took 8 weeks of having no carpets, belongings in storage, no kitchen for 6 weeks, no washing machine for the whole 8 weeks and dust everywhere meaning I had to spend 3 hours cleaning every day to make it safe for the dcs. The whole house had to be fully redecorated at my own expense, apart from the £100 voucher which doesn't go far when there's a 3 bedroom house stripped back to bare plaster.

We got no reduction in rent, in fact the rent increased afterwards, and no alternative accommodation at any point despite having three dcs under the age of five.

It's crap and demoralising when there's constant mess and everything is everywhere but that's life. It's not worth risking the good relationship with your LL by complaining or asking for a rent reduction, at the end of the day the repairs will benefit you as much as the LL.